Help me settle an argument with a friend between these two German autos.

This past weekend I was down in southern Maryland again hanging out with a friend. I've written about his grey market import e23 745i a ton of times in the past, and it was featured on NPOCP on the front page. Well for the first time in what feels like an eternity, his 928 was kind of road ready. He had to replace the fuel pump on it though as all the junk in the tank killed the walboro 255lph he put on there. In between fuel pump replacement, and me telling him he should off himself for trying to sell his 59,000mi marauder over his 142,000mi taurus, we struck up an argument over which one of his German cars had more character, and thus, was cooler. I said the 745i, he said the 928.

Lets break it down by car shall we?

First up is the 1985 BMW 745i. This car was the top trim e23, and comes with a 3.4L M106 turbocharged SOHC inline 6. Its backed by a 4spd automatic, I believe the first electronic 4spd BMW has ever used, which offers a sport, economy, and manual shift mode. This car also has buffalo leather seats which are in amazingly good shape, considering that the car sat in the woods for 6 years with a broken front window and a tarp over it.

This car came to America back in 1986 during the grey market era. I believe it was owned by a diplomat or something like that. A car that wasn't even sold in North America? Thats an instant 100 cool points.

Is it in perfect shape? Hell no, the passenger fender is dented to hell, and it has paint issues. But it is rot free, and even on the shot bushings and shocks, drives fantastic. It has a set of 18" wheels with 265/35's all around which came off a newer 6 series.

After all the shit this car has been through (trust me, its been through some shit), this car is still in good shape. It started up and ran on the 6+ year old gas that had been sitting in the tank. I've had this car up to 100 and it feels solid and planted. It ran a 15.7 at Maryland International, which is right on par with the stock times being rated for 15.8's.

I am also such a good friend that I put my sweet ass momo veloce steering wheel in the car. The steering wheel predates the car by 3 years!

Flip forward hood is also worth 100 cool points

Next up, we have what I believe, is the biggest piece of shit I've ever driven to date. Worse than a 97 civic with 165k miles on it, worse than a 94 explorer with the front end falling apart on dry rotted tires. No, this car made me question "am I going to make it 20 minutes back to my destination?".

The 1986.5 Porsche 928s

(I took this putting gas in it Saturday night)

This 928s comes with a 5.0L DOHC V8 making 288hp, backed by a 4spd automatic transmission that doesn't like to use first gear unless you are at a stop or close. It also has really good brakes, factory coil overs all around, and passive rear steering. Its wearing a set of black 993 turbo wheels with 265/35's all around to ditch those cheesy replica rims the car came with.

Now when this car was new, I believe it MSRP'd for like 60 grand. I think this car sat for about 10 years, and it has a really sketchy past. The drivers window was replaced because the car was probably broken into at one point. That door also doesn't line up because someone took the door off, probably to replace the window, and put it back on like crap. It also has an obvious white respray which is a 15ft paint job at best. My friend bought it for 1500 dollars, for a very good reason. It is a colossal piece of shit.

You think I'm kidding? Well, if I remember this all correctly, the first trip the car made, it made it to the end of the driveway before it blew the water pump out. Literally, you can see the garage in the back.

After that was fixed, and ATF was added to the trans, the car smoked horribly. So that started the ever long project of tearing the motor out and rebuilding it.

The car got a whole valve job, new rings, new cam gears, a new timing belt, all new gaskets, repainted part of the intake manifold, and stuck it back in the car.

Now that the car runs, the interior (whats left of it) needs to be replaced. For the longest time, the steering wheel had some kind of mold on it that actually ate at the foam. He used an industrial cleaner meant for cleaning bodily fluid spills (this shit came from a hospital) on the steering wheel and it STILL didn't work! After cleaning the wheel like 35 times it finally feels okay. The gas gauge sender had a bad seal and would leak into the cabin if you filled the tank to high, but thankfully thats fixed when we did the fuel pump. The front windshield is held in with hopes and dreams, you can feel the air coming in up top. You can even move the whole thing if you push on it. The weatherstripping all around is non existent, the rear hatch won't open or shut unless you climb in the back and do it yourself. The radio? Well it kept trying to eject a tape that didn't exist so my friend smashed it with a mag light until it died. All the speakers look shot anyways so I'm probably not missing much with that.

Thank God he's going to swap out the seats for a set of black seats, and dye anything he doesn't have black replacements for.

On the up side, with the 3rd muffler deleted, this car sounds really really awesome. It also moves out pretty damn quick. I had to lower the seat to the floor just so I wouldn't bang my head on the roof. It also smokes so bad if you let it idle to long because it has so much assembly oil stuck in the mufflers.

(Pop up headlights = instant cool, it looks even better with the S4 euro style housings)

It does tend to get some interesting reactions. I showed my brother the car and he thought it was the most hilarious way to spend 1500 dollars, saying it drove like a V8 powered go kart. Being an 80's child himself, I knew he would love driving the quintessential 1980's cocaine dealer sports car. My sister came outside later and said "what the fuck is that!?". Like I said, interesting reactions!